


Make a Wish

by Neyasochi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blade of Marmora Keith (Voltron), M/M, Masks, Misunderstandings, Prince Keith, Soldier Shiro, the real magic was inside Shiro all along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyasochi/pseuds/Neyasochi
Summary: When Takashi Shirogane, a retainer of modest social standing, finds himself lost in a masquerade at the royal palace, he can think only of two things: leaving posthaste and throttling Matt Holt for dragging him here in the first place.Until he lays eyes on a certain masked stranger, that is.





	Make a Wish

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [@zekwing](https://twitter.com/zekwing) for such a fun prompt and [@xerampelinae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae) for betaing!!

“Matt, I look ridiculous.”

Shiro speaks in a whisper, voice dropped low so that the primly dressed passersby won’t take notice. Through the curved eye slits of the borrowed mask he wears, he casts his gaze around the room. It’s the nicest powder room he’s ever seen— ornate mirrors, small fountains, marble and porcelain everywhere— but perhaps it’s just the norm for royal palaces.

“Only because you’re acting so nervous,” Matt scoffs. The eldest son of a noble family, it’s his prerogative to be nonchalant about having his retainer and oldest friend play at being nobility. He waves a hand dismissively. “It’s just a party, Shiro, to celebrate some visiting prince. Consider this an order for you to get out there and have some fun for once.”

“But I’m supposed to be waiting in the courtyard with the rest of the personal guards and attendants—”

“It’s a masquerade,” Matt interrupts, thumping fondly against Shiro’s chest. “You can be anyone you want, Shiro. No one will know! That’s half the fun.”

“Fun,” Shiro repeats as he follows Matt out into the dimness of the hall. “And what am I to do if someone asks me who I am, hm?”

“Make up a name,” Matt huffs, hands thrown up in exasperation. “You’re overthinking this, like always. Worrywart,” he adds with a sideways glance.

“It’s my job to worry, _my lord_.”

“Stop that,” Matt hisses back, “or someone will catch on. Just— Shiro, just be yourself and try to have a good time. Dance, drink, play some party games, and we’ll go home with no one the wiser.”

A quarrelsome feeling in Shiro’s gut tells him it won’t be so simple. But he’s already dressed in the over-the-top outfit Matt chose for him, complete with a furred half-cape. And as Shiro is tugged out into the party proper, the last thing he can think of is turning around and leaving.

The ballroom is lavishly grand, five times the size of the modest one in the Holts’ ancestral keep. Brighter, too. The royal family prefers white marble, it seems, and lots of it. Gold accents touch the bannisters of the curved staircase and edge the twenty-foot windows. Sky blue tapestries lightly flutter where they hang along the walls. A massive crystal chandelier hangs from the center of a ceiling enchanted to sparkle like the night sky above them, the stars twinkling.

And as soon as Shiro turns to Matt to grudgingly admit to the wonder and beauty of the party, he finds himself alone.

He hunts high and low for any sign of Matt’s grinning fox mask, politely shouldering past lords and ladies who murmur softly in his wake. There’s no sign of him— of the one person in attendance here that Shiro personally knows— and Shiro is left alone amid the hundreds of masked and costumed partygoers in attendance. But as he makes his way to the fringes of the crowd for a breath of air, he decides there might be some truth to Matt’s claims. Maybe he _could_ pass for something more than he is, if only for tonight.

Not that he isn’t still tempted to drag Matt out of the masquerade by the ear when he finds him, though.

“Looking for someone?”

The low, smoky timbre of the voice hangs in the air behind him; under the collar of his borrowed finery, Shiro’s hair stands. With breath drawn and held in anticipation, he turns and finds himself facing a man in a mask like no other he’s ever seen— sleek and dark, minimal in its design. Strange and beautiful carvings crest its cheeks, aglow with some subtle kind of magic. Other than that, there’s little of note but two elegant openings through which a pair of dark, keen eyes peer out.

Shiro’s gaze flits down, quickly, and takes in the stranger’s perfectly tailored tunic, with slits to his hip that reveal the drakeskin pants underneath; his long leather gloves; his tall boots with silver metal along the shin. Everything he wears is handsome and practical while still accentuating the lean strength of the body underneath, and Shiro is… curious.

“I was,” he says, already resigned to navigating this without Matt’s help. Suddenly, it seems less of a burden to be without him. “But I think I’ve been ditched.”

A tilt of that masked head, almost playful. “That’s a shame. These things are never fun alone.”

“No,” Shiro easily agrees. He finds himself gravitating closer, amidst the press of the masked crowd, to this stranger. “But perhaps we could keep each other company?”

“I would like that. Keith,” he introduces, extending a hand. “Of Marmora.”

Between the warmth of Keith’s palm against his own and the expectation of an answering introduction, Shiro’s thoughts fizzle out and his mind sits blank. Matt’s voice echoes in his thoughts, irritating and only marginally helpful. _Make up a name._

“I… J-Jiro,” he rushes out at the last moment. Cursing his own lack of creativity, Shiro licks his lips and hunts for something— anything— to use for the rest of his false name. His desperate gaze settles on one of the tapestries hanging on the far wall, alighting on the embroidered fields of vibrant pink flowers. “Juniberry. Viscount.”

“Viscount Jiro Juniberry,” Keith of Marmora pieces together in slow, measured tones, as if running it past Shiro to make sure he has it right. His hand slips out of Shiro’s, sable-gloved fingers curling where they settle on the gilded bannister.

 _Why did Matt make it sound so easy to lie about who I am?_ Shiro counts his blessings that Keith is from a different kingdom entirely— part of the entourage accompanying the visiting prince Matt had mentioned, most likely— and therefore less likely to realize how laughably fake a name like _Jiro Juniberry_ is.

“Just Jiro is fine,” Shiro breathes, hurrying to some other topic of discussion. He leans against the bannister, praying he looks as casual and composed as he hopes he does. “How are you enjoying the party?”

The dark eyes lying just behind the mask crinkle the slightest bit, the tiniest indication of a smile. “Better, now. I like your mask.”

“Oh, this?” Self-consciously, Shiro reaches up to touch it, metal fingertips tracing the angular edges of gold-edged leather and the white fur trim that bleeds into his own snow-pale hair. “Matt picked it out for me.”

“Matt?”

“Oh, ah— Lord Matt Holt, the one who dragged me here and left me to fend for myself,” Shiro laughs. “He’s a childhood friend with a fondness for luring me to social events I’d rather avoid.”

None of it’s a lie, so the words come easy.

Keith hums behind his mask. Muffled, it nearly sounds like a purr. “Well, I’m glad he brought you. And that he has good taste. You wear that mask well, Jiro.”

“Do I?” Shiro asks, well aware he’s smiling stupidly. “Yours is— it suits you.”

“Thanks. Mine feels a little plain by comparison,” Keith says, staring out over the crowds sporting feathers, gems, glittering scales and bold paint. A knuckle trails along the edge of his mask, all of it dark but for those few simple designs where the faintly purple light of some strange enchantment seeps through. “It’s traditional for Marmoran warriors to wear. I think they’re what inspired your princess to host a masquerade for us in the first place, actually.”

“Ah. Well, I think it’s lovely,” Shiro says, stare settling on the one part of Keith he can glimpse through the mask— his eyes, a nighttime violet fringed in lashes so long they nearly poke through. “But I’d wager you’re just as lovely without it.”

Keith goes silent, staring at Shiro with fixed disbelief. And Shiro is suddenly ready to sink back into the crowd and let it carry him away like the tide pulling refuse back out to sea.

“I…” Keith’s pretty eyes shift between staring point blank up at Shiro and shunting off to one side; dismally, Shiro wonders if he’s contemplating leaping over the bannister just to get away.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro says before Keith can think any worse of him. He takes a step backward down the crowded staircase, giving Keith some room. It was never his place to start a conversation like this in the first place, with a man of title and rank that must outstrip his own by leagues. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I’ll go. I hope you have a wonderful evening regardless.”

A gloved hand falls over Shiro’s own— smaller but more finely made, an unyielding strength hidden in those elegant, artful fingers— and keeps him from retreating any further.

“Wait, don’t go,” Keith says, a frantic note in his muted words. “I wasn’t— I didn’t know what to say, that’s all. But I bet you’re as handsome under your mask, too.”

“Oh.” With that, Shiro returns a step higher, closer. Even standing on the stair below Keith, they’re not quite at eye-level. He smiles. “Well, now _I_ don’t know what to say. I guess that makes us even.”

There’s no way to tell if Keith is smiling back, but Shiro likes to imagine he must be. The small hand lying over his lingers, warm and reassuring. Perhaps forgotten. Until Keith suddenly withdraws it, head turning aside, and hastily smoothes out the front of his sleek tunic.

“Should we dance?” Keith’s voice wavers behind the impassive Marmora mask as he gestures to the crowds moving in sync around the marble floor below.

Under the cover of his lion mask, Shiro’s cheeks heat. “Oh, I don’t— I would like to, but…”

But he’d only embarrass himself. While Matt and Pidge had taken their dancing lessons, as all nobility eventually do, Shiro had spent his afternoons practicing an entirely different sort of footwork. He knows the steps that accompany the swinging of swords, not violins and harps, and ten seconds on the ballroom floor would reveal all that and more.

“I’m not much for dancing, either,” Keith says, staring out at the carefully orchestrated movements of the party guests on the dancefloor. “Not like this, at least. Not with so many people.”

“Then why ask me to dance at all?”

“An excuse,” Keith says, soft under the din of dozens of conversations and stirring string music, “to get closer to you.”

Shiro chews that over for a good few moments, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on the banister as he watches the party below. “Would you like to take a walk?”

Shiro gets his answer in the form of a leather-clad hand palming its way up the resting swell of his bicep, fingers curling along the underside of his arm in a loose hold. Keith stands so close that Shiro can feel the heat of him sinking through his clothing and into his well-scarred skin.

“Uh, I don’t actually know my way around here,” Shiro admits.

“Then I’ll lead the way.”

And immediately, Keith takes off with Shiro in tow. He weaves through masked partygoers and servants carrying platters of food, holding fast to Shiro to keep from splitting up. He moves with purpose, direct and fleet of foot, impolitely barrelling through groups of masquerade attendees who clutter the halls.

 _Impatient_ is the word that comes to Shiro’s mind as he’s led down a curved staircase, their hurried footsteps and hushed laughter echoing. He feels half a teenager again, sneaking down to the kitchens with Matt when they ought to be in bed, only the prize of Keith’s company is a far greater thrill than stolen raspberry cookies. Shiro curses under his breath when he stumbles on the second-to-last step, the bobble sending him tipping forward straight into Keith—

Who catches him. _Easily._ One of his hands splays against Shiro’s shoulder, fingers flexing into his muscle, and the other holds him at his waist.

“Careful.” Keith’s voice is low behind him mask, his dark eyes playful. He pauses to set Shiro right, effortless despite his smaller size and stature, and then takes Shiro by the hand as he clears the last stair.

A heavy, oaken door sits at the bottom of the stairwell. Shiro holds it open for Keith as they slip outside, head pointedly turned aside as they pass two silent but watchful guards.

“A garden,” Shiro observes, transparently delighted at where Keith led them. It’s empty, given the late hour, with just a handful of guards keeping watch.

“Much better,” Keith sighs as their boots crunch over the gravel of the garden path. Tree boughs arch overhead, leafy and fragrant; night-blooming flowers hang in full bloom. The hedges around the path are perfectly manicured, the moonlight bright where it falls on waxy leaves.

“I got lost in a garden like this, once,” Shiro admits as the path takes them into the towering, mazelike hedges at the garden’s heart. “While playing hide-and-seek with Matt. Took me an hour to find my way back out of it. Turned out Matt had stuffed himself into a cupboard in the servant’s kitchen and stayed there the whole time.”

There’s the muffled breaths of a faint laugh somewhere behind the sleek metal-and-leather of Keith’s mask.

“We don’t even have gardens like this back home,” Keith says. “Too much fuss. Too much water. Everything that grows there, grows wild. Hibiscus, wolfberries, ironwood. The sweetest, thorniest blackberries. Fields of sunflowers taller than you are.”

Shiro laughs, soft and slightly self-deprecating. “Sounds like I could get lost again, then.”

The hand around his holds tighter. “I wouldn’t let that happen.”

They navigate the rest of the small hedge maze in companionable silence. In a clearing at its center, they find a row of elegant statuary and a picturesque little fountain, water gently burbling from the trumpeting snout of a marble yalmor.

Keith stares. “That’s…”

“You can say it’s hideous,” Shiro whispers, his elbow pressing lightly into Keith’s side. “It’s alright. I won’t tell anyone.”

Keith finally laughs outright, his whole body leaning into Shiro’s for one gut-squirmingly satisfying second. His labored breaths fade into a sigh that slips around the edges of his mask. Almost fondly, he reaches out and touches the giant ear of the yalmor. “I’d hide it at the center of a maze, too.”

Shiro’s smile falters when Keith’s slender hand finally slips out of his own, smooth leather gliding over his nervously sweaty palm. Through the almond-shaped eyes of his mask, he watches Keith walk the row of nearby statues, gloved fingers trailing over stone as he gives each one a cursory once-over.

At the last statue, Keith nimbly lifts himself up to sit on the edge of its tall pedestal. It gives him a few inches on Shiro, whom he watches keenly from his perch. The marks carved into his Marmora mask glow even brighter out here, a beacon in the dark.

Hesitant steps take Shiro toward him. The night is starry and the air still, the hedge walls of the maze tall enough to shutter them off from everything but the twinkling heavens.

Lean legs clad in drakeskin and knee-high boots swing gently back and forth, heels tapping against the stone pedestal. Loosely clasped hands unfurl, gloved fingers beckoning Shiro closer, closer, closer still. Until he stands in between Keith’s knees, the warmth of inner thighs felt against his ribs.

Shiro’s reminded, looking up at Keith, that they’re from entirely different worlds. Keith hails from some storied, highborn house in another kingdom— one Shiro’s never heard of but nonetheless knows is lofty enough to keep company with royalty. And though raised up almost alongside Matt and Pidge, Shiro is still of humble origins. An orphan of common birth, no family of note and no great wealth to his name. No title, no lands, no place among nobility outside of the Holt estate.

None of that’s ever bothered him much before, not with the Holts and their household being close enough to family that Shiro’s never wanted for much, but…

But now, he wants. He wants terribly, and the slender fingers tracing the lines of his mask and skimming through his hair only deepen the well of desire currently sinking through the pit of his stomach.

A thumb strokes along the edge of his jaw, over the tenderness under his earlobe. The other presses squarely over his lips, oiled leather dragging over his skin, tugging at his bottom lip till his teeth show. Hands tilt his chin higher, knuckles skimming lightly down the underside of a throat ringed in old battle scars.

Shiro swallows tightly as Keith abruptly draws a hand up and pulls off his own mask, the dark cowl drawn over his head pooling around his shoulders.

Moonlight can only show so much, but Shiro can tell he’s beautiful. Less purple than he’d anticipated for a Galra, yes. And younger, too, than he’d figured from the low timbre of his voice. But strikingly handsome, with a scar not so different from the one Shiro carries drawn up the curve of his right cheek.

“You— you’re— I was right,” he murmurs, still staring up at Keith. “No. No, you're even lovelier without it.”

Keith lets out a soft little huff of air, not quite a laugh but similarly amused. For the first time, Shiro sees his smile— quick as an arrow and warm as flaring embers, nighttime shadows clinging to his pretty lips.

Fingertips tease at the edge of Shiro’s white leather mask, waiting for permission to peel it away and meet him face-to-face.

And Shiro falters.

His hands wrap easily around Keith’s slender wrists. “I— I can’t. I’m less than you’d expect. Underneath it,” Shiro says, blinking furiously behind the eye slits of the mask that hides his scar, his face, the truth of who he is and isn’t.

“You’re enough, Jiro,” Keith says, brow pinched and his low voice wavering with pleading concern. Everything in his look drips with compassion and effort to understand, to reassure, and it’s almost too much for Shiro. “More than enough, masked or not.”

Gloved palms settle over the exposed skin of Shiro’s jaw instead, undeterred by his refusal to be seen without his lion mask. Keith bows low as he runs his knuckles up Shiro’s throat. A crooked finger drags underneath his square jaw, angling his head upward and into a kiss.

At the warmth of Keith’s lips and his heated breath, Shiro’s anxieties melt away like the thinnest wax.

He leans forward on the balls of his feet, calves taut as he pushes up into the kiss; he’s met with short breaths and hungry sighs and the points of short fangs. Given over to his eagerness, Shiro runs his hands up Keith’s drakeskin-clad thighs, squeezes at slim hips, cups them around a narrow waist. Lean but noticeable muscle moves under his touch, responsive to every gesture.

And Keith doesn’t waste any time, either. His nose presses awkwardly into Shiro’s mask as he kisses him dizzy and bruised. Lean calves and thighs rub up and down Shiro’s sides, desperate for any sort of friction. And Keith’s hands travel— through snowy hair and across broad shoulders, working under the fur cape and fabric to knead at tensed muscle.

Keith’s hand dips lower, warm leather sliding sinfully slow down Shiro’s chest. He palms over the swell of one firm pectoral before traveling lower, fingertips tracing over ribs and spreading across his belly. And when he finally breaks the chain of kisses with Shiro, it’s to press his forehead against the mask’s and smush his nose against the tooled leather, whole body quivering as he lets out a mighty and wavering exhale.

Through the raggedness of his own breaths, Shiro hears Keith whisper something faintly recognizable. Galran, he guesses. Shiro’s familiarity with the tongue begins and ends with the war against Daibazaal— harsh cries, bellowed commands, foreign curses.

But Keith’s tone is worlds apart from all that. It’s soft and well-pleased and full of wonderment. It sounds how Shiro feels, having Keith in his arms and on his lips. _Too good to be true._

There’s a singing in Shiro’s veins as he presses into Keith and feels him press back, a sweetness to the soft sounds Keith makes in his ear as he kisses his throat. There’s no mistaking the interest in the way Keith’s hips roll against his front, either, nor the hard outline pressing through the rich leather of his pants. Shiro feels it, too, for the first time in so long he’d almost forgotten it. A wistful fire in his belly, an edge to that longstanding hunger for touch, a need that begs him to bear Keith down to the ground right here and now.

But Shiro fights it, inasmuch as he can. Keith’s probably used to soft beds and proper gentleman, not soldiers starving for affection after a years long drought.

Still, he’s unmistakably aroused where Keith’s hand wedges between them, aching under the simple press of his palm. Shiro’s blood surges, every bit of him straining to be closer to Keith, to be in him, around him, to mark him and please him until he’s calling his name—

Not his name, though. _Jiro._ The thought rankles, and for a moment Shiro’s fervor weakens.

But Keith’s efforts only redouble, rocking himself into Shiro until he's barely still seated on the pedestal. One hand toys with the laces of Shiro’s pants while the other knots slender fingers through his pale hair; a gentle tug draws Shiro’s neck into an arch, perfect for Keith to run his tongue along the square cut of his jaw and pepper soft kisses under his ear.

A bright spark of light overhead catches Shiro’s eye first, then Keith’s. The only thing that could distract them from each other in the moment is probably this: a barrage of falling stars, more than Shiro’s ever seen in all his years of watching the skies.

“Make a wish,” Keith whispers against the corner of his mouth, watching the starshower along with him, just as breathless.

The next shooting star is the largest and brightest yet. It streaks through the heavens above them, trailing white fire. Another follows just a heartbeat after it, its tail flickering red.

Shiro’s eyes slip shut as soft lips cover his own. He wishes only that tonight’s lies were true— that he held some title worthy of a man like Keith, that he had some chance of knowing him properly, without the masks and masquerading. That he needn’t have played pretend just to meet him like this in the first place.

Because there’s no way forward from here. There never was.

Shiro turns his head a fraction, parting his lips from Keith’s. He draws back just an inch at first, reluctant to leave the other man’s warm hold— the clasp of strong legs, the kind hands on his shoulders and in his hair, the promise of more kisses and aching touches— and then further still.

“I’m sorry, Keith. I… I have to go,” Shiro breathes out, untangling himself as he takes a wobbling step back.

With no mask to hide it, Keith’s stunned hurt is plain. His pinched brows and parted lips give way to a firm stare and a tight-jawed frown, gloved fingers clenching around the edge of the pedestal as Shiro turns from him.

The woundedness of Keith’s expression lingers with Shiro as he disappears into the darkened hedge maze. The scorn, too.

But the regret is all his own.

 

* * *

 

“Shiro.”

The hand on his back is meant to comfort. Shiro shies away regardless, gaze fixed on his sword as he sharpens every edge of it to a razor’s thinness.

But Matt is nearly as persistent as Pidge. He drops down to sit on the low wall beside his bodyguard and closest friend, knee knocking into Shiro’s. “You need to take a break. You’ve spent all this time honing every weapon in the armory, but _you’re_ the one getting worn around the edges.”

Shiro stops midstroke and allows the hand holding the whetstone to fall into his lap. He blows out a sigh. “If I keep myself preoccupied, my thoughts can’t get to me.”

That’s a lie. Shiro’s spent what feels like every minute of the last three days and nights remembering Keith— his voice, his beauty, his easy and understanding conversation. He lies awake in his bed, covers pushed low and his hand spread across his belly, tracing the places where Keith once touched him. As he eats breakfast, he wonders what Keith is having while he lodges at the palace with his prince and the other Marmoran nobility; while he trains the castle’s newest guards, he wonders if Keith’s returned home to the dusty plains of Marmora yet.

The corner of Matt’s mouth twitches, sympathetic. “Right. You _definitely_ don’t look like a man in mourning. Not even a little.”

Shiro spares him a dry look.

“I bet he’s just as hung up on you, if that’s any consolation,” Matt tries.

“Doubtful. He doesn’t even know who I am, Matt.” Shiro’s sigh carries through the empty courtyard. “He’ll leave and I’ll never see him again. And even if I did, I— it’d still be— I couldn’t…”

“You know what I think we need? A little sneak into the wine cellar,” Matt suggests. At the small shake of Shiro’s head, he abruptly changes tact. “We could stop by the rabbit hutches? Petting them always makes you feel better. Or we could go to the market and buy you a new set of gloves or something. My treat.”

“I’m fine, Matt. Thank you,” Shiro murmurs, accepting a sympathetic half-hug from his friend. It doesn’t lessen his turmoil over having lied to and left Keith, but he appreciates the gesture. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know. I know. I’d just like you to be fine sooner rather than later,” Matt says, not unkindly.

A call from one of the guards up on the castle wall interrupts the relative quiet, echoed and spread by the others manning the defenses. It heralds an arrival of some kind, out of the ordinary enough to stir up excitement.

Shiro looks over at Matt for an answer and receives only a bemused shrug in return. “I wasn’t aware we were expecting any company.”

Curious, Shiro rounds the corner and passes under an arched walkway, hand loosely curled around the pommel of the sword sheathed on his hip. Matt peeks around him, for once not stubbornly insistent on trying to march ahead and meet danger first.

A lump forms in Shiro’s throat the moment he sees the dusky colors of Marmora pennants come through the gates and greet the castle’s head guard, half a dozen masked bodyguards accompanied by royal soldiers. An enormous wolf sits obediently beside the bay mare at the head of the party, and astride the bay sits Keith.

The glowing marks etched into every Marmoran’s mask are different, and Shiro knows Keith’s at first sight. He recognizes him by the dark shag of his hair, with a little windswept sprout at his crown. By the leanness of his body, sitting proudly in the saddle. By the way he moves, with that quiet assurance that carries even to his fingertips.

“That’s him,” Shiro breathes, frantically patting Matt on the shoulder. “That’s him, from the masquerade.”

“ _Of course_ he is,” Matt hisses back, shrugging Shiro’s hand aside. “The party was held in his honor—”

“Lord Matt!” one of the gate guards calls as he leads the small band of royal troops and Marmora around to them. “Ah, Lord Matt. Prince Keith of Marmora is here to see you.”

Shiro’s blood turns cold and sluggish in his veins, shock rooting him to the spot. _Prince Keith._

“It’s an honor,” Matt says as he hurriedly straightens up and steps forward, a little skittish at the sight of the lumbering wolf amid the horses. “Although not one I’d expected. Are you certain you don’t mean to pay a visit to my father, Lord Sam Holt?”

“My business is with your bodyguard there, actually,” Keith answers through the impassive shield of his mask, nodding in Shiro’s direction. “If you don’t mind.”

Shiro looks from Matt to Keith and back again, his jaw slack with surprise.

“What sort of business?” Matt asks, stepping a little closer to Shiro. Protective, even of the man who’s meant to protect him.

“Personal.” Keith keeps it curt. Under him, the bay horse shifts impatiently, as if sensing its rider’s growing irritation.

“It’s alright, Matt,” Shiro whispers, two fingers touching his lord’s arm. When that doesn’t work, he gives Matt’s shoulder a squeeze and gently steers him away. “It’s time I account for myself.”

With Matt’s hesitant blessing, Shiro offers to lead Keith to the nearest garden. “It’s a little more private.”

“So long as you don’t run out on me again,” Keith comments, side-eying him from the saddle.

“I— no. No, I won’t,” Shiro promises, nervously folding his hands together behind his back. He waits while Keith dismounts and hands the reins off to his guards, inwardly bracing to be verbally and metaphorically dragged up and down the length of the courtyard.

There’s a burning in the prince’s eyes as he strides back toward Shiro, a smoldering intensity that shines through the eye slits of his mask. The massive wolf looms behind him, treading after Keith on silent paws.

“Imagine my shock when I asked after Viscount Jiro Juniberry and learned there was no such man,” Keith says as he and the wolf breeze past Matt, gesturing for Shiro to walk with him.

Matt shoots him one last, pitying look as they go, golden blonde eyebrows upturned as he mouths _‘Jiro Juniberry?’_

Shiro’s mouth opens wordlessly. He has no defense for any of it, least of all his last-second name fabrication. He can only fall into obedient step alongside the prince and his intimidatingly large wolf, that lump still sitting tight in his throat, and pray he hasn’t ignited some new conflict with their kingdom’s newest ally.

He’d played at being someone he wasn’t. He’d pursued someone even further above his station than he’d realized. And worst of all, he’d lied to Keith to do it.

“You found me.” He can’t help the wonder in his voice. From a masked ball in the kingdom’s bustling capital, without a proper name or a face to go by, Keith had tracked him all the way back to the countryside. And once Shiro admits his guilt to Keith’s satisfaction and is dragged to Lord Holt for sentencing, he doubts there will be time for questions. “How?”

Keith slows once they reach the garden’s stone path, well away from the guards and servants milling in the courtyard. “Not a lot of men of your… proportions walking around. Or your hair. And once I mentioned your association to a certain Matt Holt, Princess Allura knew where I could look for answers.”

 _Ah. Matt._ It had been foolish to mention him, but no more so than approaching Keith in the first place.

“It’s a long ride from the palace to here,” Shiro comments. Their pace down the path is almost leisurely, bordered on either side by Colleen Holt’s lovingly kept flora and the giant wolf close on their heels. “You must’ve moved quickly.”

“I was highly motivated.”

“Sorry for putting you through so much trouble on my account,” Shiro says, his throat tight like there’s a knot cinched around it. Awkward silence stretches afterward, Shiro nervously glancing sideways every other step. “You, uh, never mentioned that you’re a prince.”

“You never mentioned that you’re a soldier in the employ of a noble family,” Keith replies, words clipped. He stops short, under the leafy shade of a dogwood still in bloom, and turns toward Shiro; his shoulders are squared, arms crossed over his chest, stance drawn tight and defensive.

Shiro winces, gaze dropping to the ground at Keith’s feet. Again, he finds himself grateful for a mask— for Keith’s this time, which at least spares him the full expression of the prince’s displeasure, his disappointment, his injury. “I’m sorry, Kei— Prince Keith. For misrepresenting myself to you. My intent wasn’t to trick you or offend you, and… I’m sure Lord Holt would negotiate with you a suitable punishment for me.”

Keith mutters something in Galran as he rips his mask free. “I didn’t come all this way to see you punished. I came to see _you_.”

In daylight, he’s even more beautiful. The scar on his cheek is more striking, the color of his eyes a brighter violet. A few locks of hair cling to his forehead, plastered there by the sweat of a long and hurried ride through the country. And though Keith’s still frowning, it’s with a softness that suggests he didn’t come here for Shiro’s head after all. Maybe not even for a slap on the wrist.

 _I came to see you,_ repeats at the back of Shiro’s mind, soft as a whisper.

Before him, Keith stands with his familiar mask stripped away and a bare hand extended like an offering.

“Prince Keith of Marmora,” he introduces, a dozen emotions flickering through his expression as he meets Shiro’s gaze. Without the mask, he reads like a book— determination, faint exasperation, flickers of shyness, and something breathtakingly intense simmering underneath all the rest.

For a moment, Shiro can only stare. And then he takes Keith’s hand in a firm clasp, amazed at how easily it’s swallowed up in his own. “Takashi Shirogane. Shiro, to my friends.”

“Shiro,” Keith repeats, suddenly sounding weary. “Shiro, _Jiro_ … gods, you didn’t even try.”

“I was flustered,” Shiro justifies, feeling much the same now. “I didn’t expect anyone to approach me at all, much less a beautiful stranger that I very much wanted to like me in return. And certainly not a prince.”

Keith huffs, his grip sliding up to fasten around Shiro’s wrist. With an easy tug, he pulls Shiro in closer. And for a moment, he looks like he might lunge up and seize Shiro in a kiss— until he digs in his heels, starkly pretty face darkening with a scowl. “If you think so highly of me, then why’d you take off and leave me sitting in the middle of that maze with the yalmor fountain? Like I’m— like you’d—”

Keith licks his lips while he hunts for the words to suit his injury, looking equal parts vexed by Shiro and himself.

“Because sooner or later, you’d have realized what I was. Who I am. And you’d be rightly angry about it, so… I was afraid,” Shiro says, so soft he wonders if Keith hears it. “I’m sorry, Your Highness—”

“ _Keith._ ” His expression screws a little tighter, lines furrowing between his pinched brows. “I don’t understand why you didn’t… why not just _tell me_ who you really were in the first place? Why play games with me?”

“Because I met you under false pretenses, Keith. I was never supposed to be at that masquerade, never supposed to cross your path. And I couldn’t come clean without being dragged out in front of you. Or worse.” Shiro doesn’t even know what punishments are on the books for commoners who crash parties and trade sloppy kisses with foreign royalty; maybe he’s the first lovestruck idiot to try it. “I wanted to know you so badly that my common sense left me. And I couldn’t stomach the thought of— that if I told you who I am, you might be offended I ever spoke to you.”

“Why would I think any less of you because you’re not some viscount?” Keith asks, leaning his head and chasing Shiro’s gaze when he embarrassedly turns aside. His fingers remain wrapped around the plated metal of Shiro’s wrist, caught between their bodies; his left hand settles on Shiro’s hip, gingerly light.

“Orphaned farmers’ sons don’t really mingle with high society,” Shiro tells him, rueful behind his smile. Through the fabric of his light tunic, he can feel the prince’s thumb slowly tracing the ridge of muscle along his hip. “Much less royalty.”

Keith’s frown evens into a soft line that borders on a smile. “I wasn’t born a prince, Shiro, and I won’t be one forever. Marmora… we do things differently. I’m only royalty because my mother won the Kral Zera. Before that, I was just a warrior. Like you.”

Shiro nearly sputters. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Keith laughs, the sound soft with relief. “My mother, too, and my father was a blacksmith. I forget sometimes that other kingdoms can be so…”

“Rigidly stratified?”

Keith gives him a cheeky little smile, eyes flashing like there’s another word he’d rather use. “You’re better at putting things diplomatically.”

Shiro’s cheeks warm, but it’s less from the compliment and more from the way Keith’s looking at him— and holding him, by the hand and by the hip, so close that Shiro can smell the smoky sweetness of campfire on his riding clothes.

“Thank you for the chance to start over,” Shiro murmurs. “And for hunting me down. I know it must’ve been a lot of trouble to go through.”

“Worthwhile,” Keith says with an easy sigh, staring off where his wolf now lounges in the sun, its tongue lolled out. He relaxes into Shiro’s space, the toes of his slim boots slotting between larger feet as he leans into him. “Would you, um… do you feel like having that dance now?”

Shiro blushes warm as he lets Keith shift them both into something approximating a proper dancing form. His metal hand settles on Keith’s shoulder, where it feels natural; Keith’s ends up on his hip again. Nearby, the wolf lays in a mess of garden flowers, tongue lolled out as he watches them.

“I should let you know that I never had any formal lessons. Matt tried to teach me but he’s not that good, either,” Shiro confides before they start, his nose wrinkling.

Keith laughs as he moves into the first step, pulling Shiro along while he leads. His head is held high, chin proudly lifted. “You’ll pick it up quick. And if not, I’ll put in however many hours it takes to teach you.”

“Very noble of you,” Shiro says, grinning. “And maybe self-sacrificial,” he adds, wincing as he immediately steps squarely onto Keith’s smaller foot.

He treads on Keith’s toes a dozen more times over the course of the impromptu lesson, all of which the prince bears with remarkable patience. They bump heads when Shiro tries to keep an eye on his feet, and twice Shiro trips over himself after getting lost in the depths of Keith’s eyes. But eventually he gets the gist of it, and with Keith’s confident lead they manage a slow waltz through the garden to the sounds of the singing birds.

“For the past three days, I’ve felt nothing but star-crossed and remorseful,” Shiro admits as they move together down a wide aisle lined in blooming chrysanthemums, Keith’s wolf slinking after them with his tongue lolling out. “But now all I can think is how lucky I am. Lucky that Matt dragged me to that party. Lucky we happened to cross paths. Lucky we met at all.”

At that, Keith laughs. “There was a lot more to it than luck, Shiro.”

At Shiro’s slight and questioning squint, Keith bites his lower lip and smiles sly. “There were a hundred eyes on you, you know. Dozens of people drawn to the handsome white lion wading through the crowd. I made sure I got to you first.”

Shiro smiles back, slow at first but gaining ground when he realizes that Keith means it. “Wait, you sought me out?”

“With more urgency than is becoming of a diplomatic emissary, according to my uncle. But it paid off.” He seems confident of that, staring up at Shiro with a kind of fondness that leaves his eyes sparkling.

They wander through the garden until Keith’s wolf starts whining, jaws lined in two-inch fangs opened wide as he howls for attention. And like before, Keith and Shiro glance up and are taken by surprise— this time by the sun setting over the castle wall, the afternoon already slipped away while they ambled through the garden, lost in each other.

“Didn’t mean to keep you so long,” Keith says, blushing pretty and dark as he calls for Kosmo, showering the wolf in pets and ear rubs. “Or stay so late.”

“Time with you is no hardship,” Shiro reminds him.

With a nod from Keith, he crouches down and lets the wolf give his hand a testing sniff. Whiskers and the sparse fuzz of his muzzle tickle Shiro’s knuckles, and then he gets an approving lick. Kosmo’s tail wags and swishes through the flowerbeds as Shiro ruffles the fur along his neck, admiring his bright golden eyes and happily lolling tongue.

The garden around them looks different under the glow of sunset— softer, with motes in the air catching the light— and he’s glad to share in it with Keith. It’s not the perfectly and rigidly manicured hedges of the palace, without a leaf out of place; neither is it the untamed beauty of Marmora, everything grown wild by its own whims. But it’s beautiful in its own right, a loose order to the rows of flowers and blossoming trees, a wild edge to the way Lady Colleen lets them grow.

Under birdsong and the distant sound of bells, he and Keith tread their way back to the courtyard. It sits empty, aside from two very bored-looking Marmora bodyguards lounging on the stone steps of the keep as they wait for their prince, and the shadows from the castle walls stretch out long over the stone.

“You know, at this late hour, Lord Holt will insist you spend the night here.” A wet nose bumps against Shiro’s hand, silently begging for attention; idly, he scratches Kosmo under the jaw and wonders if the wolf is _intentionally_ shouldering him closer and closer into Keith. “In the guest wing. Which is just around the corner from my quarters, incidentally, so… well-played.”

Keith’s lips quirk to one side as he tries not to smile. “Couldn’t have planned it better, huh?”

“Probably not,” Shiro agrees, strolling on air as a warm hand takes his and laces their fingers together. It’s everything he wished for days ago, when the stars fell over them— a chance to know Keith, to be worthy of a prince like him, and to do it all just as he is— come true.

**Author's Note:**

> In the morning, Keith invites Shiro to come to Marmora with him for a well-deserved holiday (¬‿¬)


End file.
